Accessibility features in MAP Toolkit

Accessibility features in MAP Toolkit

Microsoft is making the computer easier to see, hear, and use by building accessibility into our products and services. Our vision is to create innovative technology that is accessible to everyone and that adapts to each person's needs. Accessible technology eliminates barriers for people with disabilities and it enables individuals to take full advantage of their capabilities. MAP Toolkit also supports accessibility and we are continuously working to make it for everyone.

Accessibility improvements in MAP Toolkit 9.6

The following are some key accessibility support changes we made in MAP. Though some of the functionalities are already existing in MAP, we had to make some additional changes to support better accessibility.

Support JAWs screen reader: JAWS (Job Access With Speech), is the world's most popular screen reader, developed for computer users whose vision loss prevents them from seeing screen content or navigating with a mouse. JAWS provides speech and Braille output for the most popular computer applications on your PC.

Logical Tab movements: We have defined logical tab orders to specify tab orders that follows relationships in the content without following default tab orders to improve usability. User can navigate across interactive elements and fields using the tab keys.

Tabular data for charts (as needed): Charts, graphs, and other complex images often require extensive description to be made accessible to users have visual impairments. We have provided Tabular charts as an alternate for such Graphs.

Use of Proper and Consistent Icons to avoid confusion: We have used standard icons with proper size and defined alt text throughout the application.

Support high Contrast mode: If it’s hard to read text on your screen because you need more color contrast, you can turn on high contrast mode. Please click here to learn how to enable High contrast mode.

Proper labels instead of confusing icons: We have also provided proper labels for readability to avoid confusions in understanding icons.

Link Context Communication without clicking the link: We have provided Link context and user can view the details about Link without clicking on it by interactive tab movement or mouse hover.

Mandatory field identification: “* indicates required field” is one of the accessibility modes of identifying a mandatory field and we have used it for mandatory field across the Application. Please keep the screen reader punctuation level to “Most” or “All” for better experience.

Appropriate error messages: We have reviewed all our error messages and updated error message which are directly accessed, informative and helps in taking further action. Error Messages are screen reader and interactive tab movement friendly.

*Please Note: Though we put in lot of efforts to make MAP a very accessibility supportive application, we do realise that there are some areas of improvement. We might plan to address some gaps in future releases.